


To Go Home

by buoyantsaturn



Series: solangelo week 2k18 [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, M/M, Slow Burn, Voltron au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:40:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buoyantsaturn/pseuds/buoyantsaturn
Summary: “Let me guess what your lion needs: someone temperamental and difficult. Unstable. Relies solely on bad instincts. A real pain in the ass.” He glanced toward the Alteans with a raised eyebrow, waiting for one of them to correct him.Piper cleared her throat, a sign of discomfort in the situation, and said, “Well, you’re not wrong.”“Sure, so I guess the Blue Lion will just accept anybody as its pilot, right?” Nico growled, hands closing into fists at his sides. “It’s obviously not very picky about who it lets in the pilot’s seat.”“Still chose me over you!” Percy reminded him, stepping forward to get in Nico’s face.





	To Go Home

**Author's Note:**

> happy solangelo week!! we're about halfway through, so i hope you enjoy this very old wip that will hopefully someday be completed. but for now, heres this!!

“Altea may not survive this war,” the King told Will in private as the medic attempted to get the King into a healing pod. “And neither will my daughter if she continues to act the way she has been these past months.”

“Your Majesty, please,” Will begged, not for the first time, though definitely for the last - not that he was aware of that quite yet. “You need to heal as quickly as possible and return to the battle, the Alteans need you!”

“Listen to me, my boy,” the King said, resting against the side of the pod but keeping a strong hand on Will’s shoulder. “I will do all that I can to win this war, but you must do your own part, do you understand? Take my daughter, keep her in the castleship. If you must, you take her to the far side of the universe, keep her safe in any way you can. Can you do that for me, Willow?”

Will hesitated for only a second. “Yes, Your Majesty. Of course.”

“Good,” the King said finally, letting his grip relax. “Altea’s forces have weakened, and the paladins of Voltron have already hidden their Lions on planets the Galra may never find. The fate of Altea’s legacy rests on your shoulders, Willow. Do whatever you believe is necessary to save the universe from the Galran Empire. I hope that you do not let me down.” The King released Will’s shoulder, falling back into the pod completely, and Will sealed it shut.

Will ran from the chamber, out into the burning fields of Altea. Almost immediately, he spotted the Princess, hacking away at Galra soldiers with a knife that didn’t seem to be causing much damage. Will, already hurrying forward, picked up speed when he saw the Princess take a significant hit. He took the knife from her hand, easily taking down the three soldiers now surrounding them.

He turned back to the Princess, pulling her to her feet and returning her knife. “Are you alright to walk? We need to get out of here.”

“I’m fine,” she told him, staggering away a few steps. “I’m not going anywhere, we have to _fight.”_

“You’re going to _die_ if you keep fighting, Piper!” Will shouted in her face. “If you don’t come with me now I will have no choice but to force you.”

“I’m the Princess, Will, you can’t tell me what to do!” She took another step toward her next fight, but Will grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off the ground and starting toward the castleship at the edge of the field. “Put me down, you can’t do this!”

“I don’t have a choice, Piper,” Will yelled as he lifted Piper over his shoulder. “We have to leave Altea, there’s no other choice.”

Piper began struggling harder against Will’s grip, kicking her legs furiously and punching at his lower back. “No! No, I won’t leave, you can’t make me! I have to keep fighting, for my people, for my father! Take me to see my father!”

“I can’t do that, he’s in a pod,” Will told her. “We don’t have the time to waste. We’re taking the castleship and we’re going to find a safe planet to dock at, and-- We may never see Altea again. But this is our only option, so _stop struggling.”_

By now, Piper was screaming and crying, fighting against Will harder than ever, but he could feel her strength diminishing as they entered the castleship. He went straight for the healing pods, throwing the still screaming Piper inside one and apologizing as he sealed the pod. He ran to the control room, setting the ship’s course for a distant planet across the universe, and finally let himself relax when he felt the ship lift off the ground.

However, relaxing allowed Will to finally notice a sharp pain in his abdomen, and when he looked down, he saw blood soaking through the front of his shirt. He rushed back to the healing pods, vision blurring as he set up another pod, unable to see that he had set the pods at their slowest setting before he climbed in, and the pod sealed around him.

 

* * *

 

Leo Valdez hadn’t moved from his computer in almost forty-eight full hours, too worried over the threat of being kicked out of the Garrison at the end of the school year to do much other than panic. While his mother had been employed by the Garrison, Leo’s housing and tuition had been covered fully by the school, but only a week after his mother’s disappearance, Leo received a letter that his enrollment would be terminated without proper funding. He could only hope that a change in his grades and behavior would convince the Garrison to offer him a new scholarship. Otherwise, he might end up living on the streets.

His friends could hardly handle it anymore, seeing him in this constant anxious state - it was making them just as anxious about their own status at the Garrison, even though Frank’s tuition had been covered by his mother’s life insurance and Percy had started working as a teacher’s assistant at the beginning of the last school year.

Frank and Percy had insisted that Leo deserved a break, so one night Percy decided to borrow his boss’s keys, swinging them around his finger as he entered Frank and Leo’s shared dorm room. “Who wants to party it up on the roof? I hear there’s a meteor shower tonight!”

“Studying,” Leo said simply, hunching over closer to his laptop.

“You’re allowed to take a break, Leo,” Frank reminded him, but regretted it as soon as Leo’s gaze snapped up to him.

“What part of _if I don’t get a scholarship, they’ll kick me out,_ do you not understand?” he shouted across the room. “I’m sorry I don’t have a guaranteed spot in this place like you guys do, I’m sorry I have to _work_ to stay here, but I need to do this. I’m not going to be second person in our class to get kicked out, so just let me _study,_ okay?” Leo paused, glancing between Percy and Frank, angry expression melting away when he saw the shock on his friends’ faces. “Shit, guys, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m just stressed, you know? Please, just-- You gotta let me work.”

“We will let you work, dude,” Percy told him. “Come up to the roof with us, you can even bring your laptop. Some fresh air will do you good, I promise.”

“You won’t bother me while we’re up there?” Leo asked skeptically.

“Not as long as you stay up there with us,” Frank assured him. “We’ll be up there for an hour, tops. I’m sure your computer has a good enough charge to handle that.”

“So are we good?” Percy asked. “Let’s go, before we get caught!”

“If you get me in trouble when I’m in the middle of a huge good behavior streak,” Leo started, “I’ll kill you.”

“Relax, we’ll be fine!”

 

They stopped by Percy’s room so that he could pick up his telescope before they went up to the roof. Leo, of course, had his computer with him and refused to so much as glance up at the sky when he still had so much work to finish.

Percy set up his telescope closer to the edge of the roof, grumbling to himself every so often as he twisted the knobs along the side of the scope to adjust the focus. “You know something that I’m still a little pissed about?” Percy asked, loud enough that his friends could hear him.

“Jason went to Kerberos and you didn’t,” Leo and Frank said simultaneously, Frank with a roll of his eyes as he laid back to stare up at the sky.

“Alright, I get it, I complain about it a lot,” Percy muttered. “It’s still not fair, though! They offered _me_ that position first, and gave it away to _Jason_ all because I said I needed a day to think about it! Like, _sorry_ I wanted to ask Annabeth for her thoughts before I launch into space.”

“It’s been a year, Percy,” Frank complained. “Let it go and be happy you’re still alive.” He winced when he heard Leo suddenly cease typing. “Sorry, Leo, you know I didn’t mean--”

“Save it, it’s fine,” Leo said quickly. “I’m over it, okay?”

“Dude, you can’t just _be over it,”_ Percy told him, attention still focused mostly on his telescope.

“Yeah, if Percy can’t get over the Kerberos mission, then I’d be amazed if anyone could get over _anything,”_ Frank joked.

“Trust me, guys, I’m pretty over it,” Leo assured them.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Frank continued. “When my mom died--”

“Woah, guys!” Percy cried, keeping himself close to the eyepiece. “Something just entered the atmosphere and I don’t think that’s a space rock.” He hurried to shift the telescope to follow the movements of the foreign object as it fell closer to the Earth’s surface. “That’s _definitely_ not a space rock, it’s… It looks like some sort of ship!”

“Seriously?” Leo exclaimed, setting his laptop aside and jumping to his feet. “Dude, move over, let me see!” He tried to shove Percy out of the way, but the older boy wouldn’t budge. “Dude, c’mon! What if that’s my mom in there?”

Percy pulled back from the scope for just long enough to meet Leo’s eyes before turning back to the ship - something small enough to be an escape pod, most likely. “It doesn’t look like a Garrison-issued ship, Leo, I’m sorry.”

Frank leaned over the edge of the building, eyes traveling away from the plummeting spacecraft and heading toward a fast-moving speck on the ground - a motorbike of some kind speeding in the direction of the spacecraft. “Hey, do you guys see that?” he asked, pointing down, and Percy finally moved away from the telescope; Leo was quick to take his place.

“We gotta go check that thing out,” Leo cried, scrambling away to collect his laptop and the rest of the work he’d brought to the roof with him.

“Wait, Leo, hang on,” Frank started, still leaning over the edge of the roof in hopes to identify the biker below them.

Percy jumped back to the telescope, frantically adjusting the focus and finding the motorbike before shouting, “Holy shit!”

 

* * *

 

Nico had disappeared from the Garrison in the middle of the night, the same day that each member of the Kerberos mission had been declared dead. He had received a phone call from his family’s lawyer that day as well, informing him that his older sister had died in an accident and that his father was too busy to call Nico himself. Nico could barely hold himself back from a panic attack - not only had he just lost the closest thing to family he had at the Garrison with the announcement of Jason’s death, but now _Bianca?_

Nico would admit, he hadn’t thought through any of the things he did next. He’d packed a bag and snuck out of his dorm after lights-out. He’d ran to the garage underneath the Garrison dorms, hotwiring one of the hoverbikes that Garrison engineers had designed, and got the hell out of there.

At first, the rushing wind and feeling of freedom after suffocating in that school for so long was the most calming, liberating thing Nico had experienced in years. However, just as the Garrison disappeared from the horizon, Nico had felt his chest tightening, throat closing, and suddenly he couldn’t get enough air - hardly any at all. He got dizzy, lost his balance, and tumbled off the side of the hoverbike, skidding across the sand until he rolled to a stop near the edge of a cliff.

He had managed to calm himself down before he hyperventilated. He picked himself up off the ground, scrambling back from the cliff’s edge, and had spotted a tiny wooden shack less than fifty feet from where he stood. He gathered up the hoverbike and pushed it toward the shack - a better place to hide for the night than the open desert, and, unknown to him at the time, the place he would hide for the next year.

Nico had never intended to stay for very long - no longer than that first night, and he would be gone by sunrise to some other place where no one could ever find him - but he couldn’t make himself leave. He’d woken up on an old, dusty mattress in that abandoned shack with a ringing in his ears that he couldn’t get rid of and a strange feeling that he couldn’t shake.

He got comfortable in that shack, finding the nearest source of water in a day and teaching himself how to hunt and cook desert animals within the first week. He used the last of his phone’s battery to text Hazel, telling her not to worry about him because he was fine, he just couldn’t stay at the Garrison any longer. _Don’t let anyone know that you heard from me, okay? I’m sorry._

He ignored every response he received, refused to even consider opening the messages he’d gotten from Frank and Leo and Percy, and soon enough his phone’s battery had died; he didn’t have to think about those messages anymore. He had better things to do, a desert to explore, and an unsettling feeling that he needed to investigate.

 

* * *

 

“Holy shit, that’s Nico!” Percy cried.

“Are you sure?” Frank asked. “How can you be sure?”

“Because _that’s him!”_ Percy exclaimed. “I’d recognize that little emo guy anywhere, okay? Just trust me, we gotta go after him!”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Leo ran for the fire escape across the roof, hopping down a few steps before calling out, “Let’s go!”

Frank and Percy ran after him, abandoning Percy’s telescope near the edge of the roof. “What’s with the sudden change of attitude?” Frank called after him.

“Yeah, what happened to--” Percy pitched his voice higher, speaking in a nasally voice when he said, _“Don’t get me in trouble or I’ll kill you,_ huh?”

“Who needs good behaviour when that could be my _mom_ in that pod,” Leo told them jumping onto the ground from the last step of the fire escape. “Hurry up, guys!”

“Not our fault you got a head start,” Frank complained, struggling to catch his breath as he hit the ground, but Leo was still running at top speed toward the crash site of the pod. Already, he could see Garrison rovers speeding out there, setting up a perimeter around the pod.

“Hey, Leo,” Percy shouted, catching up to Frank easily, “not to burst your bubble, but how do you plan to get past all of them without getting caught?”

Leo slid to a stop at the top of a hill, staring down at the line of Garrison rovers surrounding the crashed pod, visibly deflating. “I didn’t think of that,” he said quietly when Percy and Frank ran to his side.

“We’ll need some kind of distraction,” Percy suggestion, setting a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “See anything around here we can use?”

“I could remotely disable any security tech they might be using,” Leo thought aloud, already reaching for his laptop in his backpack.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Frank said, pointing out past the pod, just as a series of minor explosions went off, and Garrison rovers started to reroute in that direction. “I’d have to guess that now is our best chance to get down there.”

“Hell yeah, let’s go!” Leo exclaimed, and slid down the slope of the hill.

 

The ringing in Nico’s ears had stopped suddenly two days ago. He’d gotten so used to it that the silence around him was deafening, so he’d started making more noise than usual just to feel like he wouldn’t go insane from the quiet.

Over the last year, he’d filled an entire wall of his shack with research and maps, strings that connected information and possible conclusions scribbled into margins that were usually crossed out. He was starting to feel like he’d reached a dead end one night when the ringing in his ears returned with a vengeance, so piercing that Nico was knocked off his feet. He pressed his palms to his ears, hoping to stifle the sound but to no avail.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the ringing stopped again. Nico pulled his hands from his head hesitantly, expecting lines of blood to have dripped onto his palms, but his skin was clean. He paused, waiting for the ringing to return, but stood when it didn’t. He went toward the window, trying to make out any sound to prove that his hearing hadn’t gone away completely, and he heard a soft whistle from above him.

Nico looked up. It appeared as though a ball of fire was soaring across the sky, but when Nico grabbed a pair of binoculars, he quickly realized that it was a crashing ship - not Garrison issued, and not anything he’d seen from other space programs on Earth. _He knew aliens were real!_

He tossed the binoculars aside and ran out the door, hopping on his hoverbike and speeding off in the direction of the falling ship.

The crash was deafening, the sound like a building collapsing in an earthquake, and Nico was nearly knocked off his bike at the sudden gust of hot air it caused.

 

Jason Grace had no recollection of...anything, really. He didn’t recognize the building he was in or the gurney he was currently strapped to. None of the people running around him seemed familiar, though they all seemed to know him.

A light was shined into his eyes. A needle pressed under his skin. He screamed for release but the sounds around him became muffled and garbled as his vision started to blur and blacken around the edges. His screams ceased abruptly as his body was forced to relax.

 

Nico was amazed at how quickly the Garrison could pitch a tent, especially one with such high security and stocked so full with medical equipment. The explosions he’d set off had only distracted a little more than half of the Garrison officers working around the tent, though most of the rest were pretty easy to sneak past. A few had needed to be knocked out a dragged to the side so that Nico could continue on without getting caught.

Once he found the central room in the elaborate tent-maze, he was able to incapacitate the few workers inside with ease as none of them made much of an effort to fight back. It was when he turned toward Jason, unconscious and strapped to a table in the middle of the room, that he ran across a significant, very unexpected problem. He froze at the sight of Percy Jackson.

Percy hadn’t seemed to notice him, focusing more on trying to wake Jason from his drug-induced sleep, so Nico gave himself half a second to relax.

He moved forward, pushing Percy out of the way and immediately starting to untie the straps at Jason’s wrists. He sat Jason up when he noticed the older man starting to wake, and saw that Percy had undone the straps around Jason’s ankles.

Nico grabbed Jason by the shoulders, shaking him to get his attention. “Jason, look at me. Can you hear me? Jason!”

Percy came up behind him, hitting Jason lightly on the cheek a few times. “Jason, man, are you okay?”

“I can handle this,” Nico snapped, and turned his attention back toward Jason. “Jason, you gotta trust me, we have to get out of here, okay? Can you stand?”

Jason groaned, obviously struggling to stay upright. “Who are you?” he asked groggily. “Where am I?”

Percy jumped back into Jason’s line of sight. “Dude! You remember me, right? I’m Percy, you’re at the Garrison, you--”

“Would you get out of here?” Nico shouted, shoving Percy away. “Jason, come on, you have to trust me, we have to _go._ I can explain everything I can later but we need to leave _now.”_

“Why should he leave?” Percy asked, shoving Nico back. “The Garrison can help, Nico, or did you forget that when you ran away?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Nico hissed, and pulled at Jason’s arm until he was swaying on his feet. “Come on, Jason, it’s not too far. We just have to be quick.”

They managed two steps before Jason slumped over, nearly knocking Nico off his feet, until Percy swept in and slung one of Jason’s arms over his shoulder. The three of them shuffled to the door just as it was opened from the other side, Frank poking his head into the room.

“Uh, the coast is no longer clear,” he told them. “We need to get out of here right now.”

For the first time that Nico could recall, he noticed Leo last. He may not have even noticed him if not for the fact that he stopped directly in front of Jason and started spitting out questions about where he’d been and how he’d survived and where Leo’s mom was. Nico shoved him out of the way before continuing back the way he’d come.

“We don’t have time for _any of this,”_ he told them. “We’re _leaving,_ follow me.”

 

Jason had slept on the mattress in Nico’s shack until morning, while Nico spent the entire night dodging questions from Percy, Frank, and Leo. Percy had just uncovered the bulletin boards on Nico’s wall and started pestering him about them just as Jason had started to show signs of waking.

Nico was happy to avoid every question the other three sent his way in favor of explaining things to Jason - things like how long he’d been gone, a brief explanation of the mission he’d been on and of the Garrison in general. He mentioned who he was, how they’d met, how they’d been very close friends while they were both at the Garrison.

Percy had tried cutting in to remind Jason of some rivalry that Percy claimed they had, though even Leo had rolled his eyes when the topic was brought up. Frank had tried to help Nico in explaining a few of the details that Nico hadn’t been getting quite right, but Nico simply talked over him. Leo had tried asking Jason about his mom, though that only seemed to confuse Jason more, and after Nico had snapped at Leo a few times, he finally relented and sat quietly.

“You really remember none of this?” Nico asked quietly, looking as though he might be starting to give up.

Jason shook his head, bringing his hands up to scrub at his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t. Maybe we should just take a break for a few minutes. I think I could use some fresh air.”

He rose from his seat on the edge of the mattress and made his way out the door. Nico didn’t move, feeling something like panic starting to well up inside him. He thought he’d finally gotten Jason back, the man who had been like a brother to him during his time at the Garrison, but he’d been wrong. Jason was back in person, sure, but the man Nico had known had been left somewhere deep in space.

Nico had almost let himself forget that there were other people in his home, but then Frank said, “Nico, do you think you could explain this to me?” He was pointing at something on one of the bulletin boards.

Nico curled in on himself, uncomfortable with having so many people in his personal space. He couldn’t help but think of how crazy he must look to these people he used to know, living in a toolshed in the middle of the desert, conspiracy theories pinned to every available space on the walls. He knew those boards like the back of his hand by now, and didn’t even have to move from where he sat across the room to know what Frank was pointing at.

“When I left the Garrison,” he started off slowly, “I took some of their equipment with me. I was hoping it might help me find Jason, but I think I might’ve found something else instead.”

“Something like what?” Percy asked, but Nico ignored him. Instead, he watched as Frank examined some of his work, afraid of what might come out of his mouth next.

“Where did you get these numbers?” Frank asked, pointing at one of the oldest sheets of paper on the board.

“I don’t remember,” Nico told him honestly. “That was one of the first things I found when I got out here.”

“They look a little bit like coordinates, almost,” Frank said, hesitating for a moment and seeming like he might be doing calculations of some kind in his head. “It’s not too far from here, actually. We could go check it out, if you want. We can see what it is you might’ve found.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Nico said. “Those numbers are from a year ago, they probably don’t mean anything anymore. It’s stupid, so just leave it alone.”

“Looks like a whole bunch of stupid nothing to me,” Percy commented, and Nico made sure to point his glare at the wall where no one could see.

Frank, however, knew Nico too well, even after a year apart.

“Percy, Leo, why don’t you guys step outside for a minute?” Frank suggested. “Make sure Jason’s okay, take him some water or something. Just don’t bother him too much.”

“Yes, _mom,”_ Percy said with a roll of his eyes, wincing after a second and apologizing when he remembered that moms were a very sensitive subject for every other person in that room. He walked out of the shack without another word while Leo grabbed a cup to fill with the water from the outside well before he followed Percy out the door.

Frank waited until the door was shut behind them before dropping onto the mattress next to Nico. “We didn’t mean to invade your space,” Frank said, “so I’m sorry for that, but you know that the Garrison probably wouldn’t let us back in after, you know, last night.”

“Yeah, and I of all people should know that,” Nico muttered bitterly, turning away and crossing his arms.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Frank told him. “I don’t blame you for running away. After Bianca - uh, Hazel told me - and then Jason disappearing, I get why you didn’t want to stay. I don’t think I would have wanted to, either. It’s just-- You could’ve told us. We could’ve tried to help you, somehow. You kind of freaked us all out when you just disappeared in the middle of the night, and we were all so worried. Hazel, especially. I don’t mean to guilt trip you here, but do you know how hard that was on her? To lose a sister and a brother in twenty-four hours?”

“I told her I was okay,” Nico said quietly. “I made sure she didn’t tell anyone that she’d heard from me because I didn’t want anyone to come looking. I’m sorry, I guess I just didn’t know who I could trust at the time.”

“I get it,” Frank said, dropping a comforting hand on Nico’s shoulder. “You don’t have to apologize, but I want you to know that you can trust me, okay? Maybe not Leo and Percy, none of us really expect you to get along with Percy, but you can trust _me.”_

“Alright,” Nico responded with a sigh. “Thanks, Frank. I-- Yeah, I know I can trust you.”

“Great, I’m glad you think so,” Frank said with a smile, shaking Nico’s shoulder a little bit before he stood up and stepped toward Nico’s bulletin boards. “Now, about those numbers on your board. Actually, you know what? Can you explain as much of this to me as you can? I think I might be able to help you figure this out.”

 

It only took about half an hour before Frank decided that their best course of action would be to see where Nico’s coordinates would lead them. Luckily, they would only have to go a few miles away from Nico’s shack. Unluckily, Frank had told the others that they were about to head out for a few hours - Nico had been planning on running off without saying anything - and the others decided to tag along with them.

The five of them traveled across the desert until the flat, sandy ground turned to rocks and hills, and they found themselves at the mouth of a cave. They wandered around inside, Nico and Jason lingering closer to the entrance and the sunlight while the others turned on the flashlights on their phones to investigate.

“I told you there wouldn’t be anything here, okay?” Nico said, tugging on the straps of his backpack - the always-packed bag of clothes and other essentials he carried with him whenever he left the shack. “This is stupid, we should just leave.”

“After walking all that way?” Leo questioned. “Hell, no! We just got here!”

“There has to be something for us to find here, Nico,” Frank reminded him. “We’ll look around for a little while longer, but if we don’t find anything, then we can leave.”

“Hey, do you think this is anything?” Percy asked, staring at the cave wall, his nose practically pressed to the stone. “There’s engravings in the wall, or something. Must be really old, they’re super hard to see.” He reached up, attempting to brush the layers of dust from over the carvings in the stone.

Suddenly, the walls began to glow a faint blue light. Nico’s ears began to ring as he watched the lights take the shapes of the carvings - something like lions mid-leap and tiny figures bowing before them.

Leo and Frank rushed over to Percy to get a closer look at the carvings, though Nico and Jason hung back. “What does it say?” Leo asked.

“How should I know?” Percy asked. “I can’t read wall carvings.”

Jason’s hand landed on Nico’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

The two stepped closer until all five of them were crowded around the glowing carvings, practically shoving at each other to try to get a better look, until they heard a cracking sound, like rocks shifting.

“Uh, what was that?” Frank asked, glancing toward the cave’s entrance to make sure they weren’t about to be trapped inside.

“Sounds like something’s shifting,” Jason said, taking a step backward. “We should--”

Nico spun around just in time to watch Jason fall through the floor of the cave. “Jason!” he called out, stepping toward the edge of the hole his friend had fallen through, only to fall through himself when the rocks crumbled out from under his feet.

Nico barely noticed the other three landing near him, too distracted by the the nearly blinding blue light radiating from a giant orb across the large cavern and the increased ringing in his ears. “What the hell is that?” Nico breathed. “Is that what brought me here?” He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the questioning voices around him as he approached the orb, the light becoming more tolerable the closer he got. He stopped only feet away from the orb, now almost completely transparent, revealing a blue lion towering over him, frozen like a statue, but something inside of Nico had him thinking that this lion was much more than a statue - something more _alive._

He raised his hand, resting his palm flat against the glowing barrier, though nothing seemed to change. “Why would you bring me here?” he asked quietly. “What do you want from me?”

Nico let his hand slip away just as Percy stepped up beside him. “Dude, this thing looks _sick!”_ He reached up and pressed a hand against the barrier, and they all watched it dissolve at his touch, the light fading from the cavern, leaving only a faint yellow glow from the lion’s eyes.

“Guess it likes me better,” Percy said to Nico with a smirk.

“Whatever,” Nico huffed, crossing his arms.

Leo shoved past Nico on his way toward the lion, calling out for Percy to follow him. As Percy moved closer, the lion crouched down with its mouth open, allowing them to climb inside.

“Holy shit,” Frank muttered, pausing beside Nico.

Jason came up to Nico’s other side, dropping his hand onto Nico’s shoulder again. “Come on, we should supervise before they break something.”

They made their way inside, finding Percy and Leo inside some kind of control room, Leo examining the dashboard and its hundreds of controls, and Percy sitting in the pilot’s seat. When he saw Jason step into the room, Percy called out, “Suck it, Jason! I got a _way_ cooler ship that you did!”

Jason glanced down at Nico. “I don’t understand what he’s talking about.”

“Ignore him,” Nico told him. “Nothing that comes out of his mouth is ever important.”

“You’re both just jealous of my _super cool_ new ship,” Percy shot back, leaning forward and starting to press buttons and flip switches on the dashboard.

“Quit touching things before you break something,” Nico snapped at him. “We shouldn’t even be in here.”

Percy made a _pfft_ noise. “C’mon, man, I’m not hurting anything! This thing probably doesn’t even work anymore.” He continued flipping a few switches until the ship roared to life - in more ways than one. The ship’s engine powered up, causing the ship to shift, and they realized that the lion must’ve returned to its standing position. As soon as every light on the dashboard was glowing, the lion roared, the sound reverberating throughout the cockpit.

“Percy, what the hell did you do?” Nico shouted, peering over the other’s shoulder to stare out of the windshield. The lion’s head appeared to be glancing back and forth, examining the cave, before tilting up to stare at the ceiling.

“Whatever you’re doing,” Frank started, holding tightly to the arm of Percy’s chair, “make it stop!”

“I’m not doing anything, dude!” Percy exclaimed excitedly. “This thing’s moving all on its own!”

“Well, get it to stop!” Jason told him, reaching forward and attempting to find the off-switch.

Percy slapped his hand away. “Cut it out, man, you got your ship, this one’s mine!”

“You sure you know what you’re doing, Perce?” Leo asked.

“Yeah, obviously, just give me a minute!” Percy leaned forward, hitting the controls over and over again, but the ship never stopped. “Nothing’s working, I don’t get it!”

“Try harder!” Nico shouted in his ear.

Percy twisted around in his seat, glaring back at Nico. “What do you think I’m--” He fell back into his seat as the lion shifted once more. Everyone braced at the sudden movement, watching through the windshield as the ship launched upwards, colliding with the rock ceiling and busting through.

“This thing’s, like, indestructible!” Leo said, peering over the dashboard and spotting blue sky instead of a rocky cave. “Uh, Percy, you wanna try to land this thing? We’re getting a little high.”

“I’m trying, nothing’s working,” Percy told him. He gave up hitting individual buttons and instead hit the side of his fist against the controls. “Oh, shit!” he yelled as the ship picked up speed, shooting into the sky, faster than any of them had ever flown in a real ship or a simulator.

“Turn this thing around!” Jason demanded, bracing himself on the back of Percy’s chair with one hand, his other grabbing hold of Nico’s backpack, pulling the younger boy closer to keep him upright.

Between the ringing in his ears, Nico could vaguely hear somebody shout, “We’re in space! No ship has ever been able to reach space this fast!” but Nico couldn’t even manage to open his eyes.

He would’ve fallen over when they landed if not for Jason keeping him standing. He opened his eyes, finding himself nearly blinded by the brightness of the blue sky beyond the ship’s windshield. The ringing in his ears had mostly subsided, fading away to a more manageable level, though it still distracted him enough that he didn’t notice Leo shouting something and running for the exit, Frank hurrying after him.

Jason shook Nico’s shoulder to gain his attention. “Nico, are you alright?”

“Huh?” Nico mumbled, glancing up at the blond. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Percy rose from his seat, stretching his arms over his head as he turned to face them. “I knew you were gay, Neeks, but I didn’t think you were gay for Jason.”

Nico’s hands tightened into fists, his glare following Percy as he left the cockpit.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Jason told him calmly, patting him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, whatever,” Nico huffed, crossing his arms. “Where the hell is the exit to this thing?”

 

The lion landed at the base of a tall staircase, leading up to a shining white castle, practically glowing in the light. The five of them exited the lion, making their way up the stairs only to stop at the sight of the massive front door.

Percy stepped ahead of everyone, hand raised and palm out, and pressed his hand flat against the door. When nothing happened, Percy said, “I don’t get it, it worked with the lion.”

Nico was midway through rolling his eyes when the lion behind them let out a rumbling roar, and the door before them creaked open.

“Uh, this all seems like a really terrible idea,” Frank pointed out, but Leo and Percy were already running inside and the rest had no choice but to follow.

The lights turned on as they stepped inside, illuminating a room larger than the cavern in which they’d found the lion. From where they stood, three different, dark hallways were visible, though as they spread out throughout the room, a singular hallway lit up, as if pointing them in the right direction.

“Everyone, this way,” Jason announced before heading into the hall, expecting the rest to follow. The lights continued to lead them through the castle until they reached a circular room, perfectly empty except for two cylinders standing in the center of the room.

Leo pushed past Jason, running up to a thin podium that seemed to be some kind of control center. He hit a few buttons, ran his fingers across a touch screen, but he turned back to the group after only a few seconds. “I can’t read any of this, I don’t know what it is or how any of these controls work.”

Jason stepped up beside him, glancing only momentarily at the control center before walking toward the cylinders. He stopped in front of one and wiped away the layer of frost coating the surface, only to find the glass beneath disintegrating at his touch.

The surface of the pod dissipated, revealing a woman wearing what looked like battle armor with long, dark hair pulled back and out of her face. She looked perfectly human, aside from the pink marks highlighting her cheekbones.

The woman started to lean forward, swaying toward Jason until she fell out of the pod and into Jason’s arms, seeming to be fully unconscious.

“Nico,” Jason said carefully, nodding toward the second pod.

Nico’s head jerked in response. He dropped his backpack by the control center and rushed toward the second pod as Jason slowly lowered the woman to the ground. Nico swiped a hand across the surface of the pod, watching as the glass disappeared and a blond man became visible on the inside. He swayed forward and Nico braced himself to catch the man, though he was completely knocked off his feet when the blond landed on top of him.

Nico smacked his head against the ground, though the blond’s head, of course, was cushioned by Nico’s chest. He seemed to wake up immediately, probably startled by the impact considering the woman was still asleep in Jason’s arms, and pushed himself up until he was hovering over Nico.

The air had been knocked out of Nico’s lungs when the blond knocked him over, but even now, staring up into sparkling blue eyes, he found he still couldn’t catch a breath. He heard someone speak - Percy, it sounded like, and knowing him it was some kind of joke about Nico’s sexuality - though Nico couldn’t hear a thing. Even the ringing in his ears had vanished completely, leaving the silence deafening.

Nico had enough time to notice that the blond was cold to the touch - _freezing,_ really, even his breath puffing against Nico’s cheeks was cold - before the blond was pulled off of him and slammed onto the ground nearby.

Nico sat up and scrambled back as the dark haired woman connected her fist with the blond’s jaw. “How could you, Will?” she screamed in his face. “How dare you force me into that pod! We are in the middle of a war, I could have you _executed_ for this!”

“Woah, uh, hey there,” Leo interrupted, drawing the attention of both aliens. “Uh, sorry, but could you guys maybe explain what’s going on here?”

“What he means to say,” Jason clarifies, “is that we found a giant blue robot lion that flew us to this planet. We don’t know why or how we’re here, or where here _is_ exactly.”

The woman froze, fist poised in the air for another blow to the blond man’s face, but she stopped herself. She stood, brushed off her clothes, and cleared her throat before speaking. “I am Princess Piper of the planet Altea. This is my castle. And this is Will, my--” She shot him a dirty look at he got to his feet beside her. “Acquaintance.”

“Altea?” Leo repeated, slipping his backpack off his shoulders and reaching inside for his computer. “No, no, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve never seen a planet by that name in the Garrison’s database, and there’s no way we’ve traveled outside of the Garrison’s viewing range in such a short amount of time.” He flipped open the lid of his laptop, already powered up and opened to Leo’s downloaded version of the Garrison’s database.

“Garrison, is that the name of your planet?” Piper asked, staring at Leo’s laptop like she’d never seen anything like it - which, to be fair, she probably hadn’t.

“No, it’s our school,” Frank answered. “We come from the planet Earth.”

“I’ve never heard of this Earth,” Piper told them. “All of you, come with me. I would like to see where in the universe your Earth is.”

She turned on her heel and walked out of the room, Will close behind, leaving the rest no choice but to follow.

 

They found themselves in what must be the equivalent to the ship’s bridge. From first glance, Nico didn’t see any way of controlling the ship, only a series of chairs spaced out throughout the room, all pointing out toward the blue sky. He figured, though, as he watched Will and Piper restore power to the ship, that this space may very well have be used as the control center.

The five humans gathered in a semi-circle around the central command area - a raised circle in the floor that happened to be the only illuminated part of the room. Will turned to them after a few moments of tapping on hologram-like touch screens, and held out a hand. “We will need to do a quick scan of the lifeforce that one of you possess so that we can locate the largest source of it in the universe.”

He made eye contact with Nico, seeming like he was holding his hand out specifically to him, but Percy slapped in hand down into Will’s before Nico could even blink. “Dude, awesome, scan me!”

Will sighed, but brought Percy a step closer, telling him to hold his hand against a certain part of one of the screens, then announcing when he could move away. It only takes a second before the screen starts to flash a few unrecognizable symbols, most likely claiming to have found a match.

Will tapped the screen a few more times and the windows pointing out to blue skies began to tint until no light could come through, and instead, a constellation map was projected into the room.

“Currently, we are here, on planet Arus,” Will told everyone, zooming in momentarily on a singular planet that had a similar outward appearance to Earth. Then, Will started to sweep his hands across the map, like he was pulling the stars themselves around the room. “Your Earth is all the way over here,” he continued, stretching out some of the words as he went.

Percy looked a little bit like he’d been punched in the stomach, but mostly like he’d just been told that his dog had died. Frank’s face held a similar expression, though not quite as severe. “You’re kidding,” he breathed.

Leo’s reaction was more calculating, like he was trying to figure out the exact distance between their two planets and how fast they must’ve traveled to have gotten between them. Jason, however, actually voiced those thoughts.

“What was that ship that we came here in? That lion?” he asked. “What is it made from that could possibly travel that far that fast without breaking apart at the force?”

“That was one of the five Lions of Voltron,” Piper began. “They are made from the strongest materials in the universe. Clearly, seeing as the Blue Lion has brought you here, the five of you have been chosen to pilot the lions and become the Paladins of Voltron.”

“But what does that mean?” Frank asked. “How do we choose our lions?”

 _“You_ do not choose your lion,” Piper explained, “your lion chooses _you.”_

“Okay, sure, a giant spaceship chooses you to be its pilot,” Leo said, clearly doubtful of the princess’s explanation. “But _how_ does it choose us?”

“You must let it,” Piper snapped, annoyed at the constant interruptions. “The Black Lion needs a pilot who is a born leader, who is always in control. Someone whose men will follow his word without hesitation.” Her eyes scanned them, stopping on Jason and staying there. “You, what is your name?”

“Jason Grace, Your Highness,” he answered.

“Jason Grace,” Piper repeated, “you will pilot the Black Lion.”

“The Green Lion’s pilot is inquisitive,” Will jumped in. “An intellect, daring, the most technologically apt.”

“Oh, man, that’s gotta be me,” Leo exclaimed. “Right? I’m the Green Pilot?”

“Green Paladin,” Piper corrected. “And yes, you seem the most suitable to pilot the Green Lion. The Yellow Paladin is caring and kind, a pilot who puts the needs of others above his own.”

“Frank,” Percy said immediately, and before the Alteans could either confirm or deny, Nico snapped, “Oh, like you know everything.”

“More than you,” Percy shot back. “Let me guess what your lion needs: someone temperamental and difficult. _Unstable._ Relies solely on _bad instincts._ A real pain in the ass.” He glanced toward the Alteans with a raised eyebrow, waiting for one of them to correct him.

Piper cleared her throat, a sign of discomfort in the situation, and said, “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Sure, so I guess the Blue Lion will just accept anybody as its pilot, right?” Nico growled, hands closing into fists at his sides. “It’s obviously not very picky about who it lets in the pilot’s seat.”

“Still chose me over you!” Percy reminded him, stepping forward to get in Nico’s face.

“Both of you, cut it out,” Jason shouted, pulling the two away from each other.

“As I was saying,” Piper continued once the Red and Blue Paladins had stopped arguing, “Once you bond with your lions, you will be able to unlock its abilities and form Voltron.”

“Where are the lions?” Frank asked. “If the Blue Lion was on Earth, then where are the rest?”

Piper frowned, glancing around at the constellations still projected around them. “It will take some time for me to locate the others. For now, Will can show you around the castle, give you some food and a place to sleep.”

“Of course,” Will said, and turned to the Paladins. “Follow me to the soldier’s quarters.” He led them down a different hallway, explaining how the castle had been built by his grandfather while Voltron was still in a developmental stage. They passed by the dining room, Will explaining that they would loop back around to eat before continuing on down a few more halls. “Here are your rooms,” he said, stopping at the end of a long hallway lined with closed doors. “There are many more, but these should be the easiest for you to find again. Feel free to claim any room in this hall as your own.”

Will stepped up to the nearest door, holding his hand out to a sensor on the wall nearby. As he did so, the door slid open, revealing a plain room with a single bed and a desk pushed up against the wall - not dissimilar to the single dorms at the Garrison. “These sensors will allow you to access your room, once you’ve chosen it. You will also be able to set a code to lock the door, should you wish, but know that the Princess and I have override codes for emergencies.”

The humans slowly made their ways forward, almost hesitant to claim their own rooms. Nico’s room was the furthest down the hall, one room between his and Frank’s with no one directly across the hall. He cautiously stepped to the center room, glancing around at the bare, steel-gray walls and the dark sheets covering the mattress.

“You can leave your bag here,” Will told him, suddenly appearing in the doorway, leaning slightly against the wall, almost as if he were trying too hard to seem relaxed. “We’ll be heading back to the kitchen now, but you’re free to come back here to your belongings after you eat. They’ll be safe here.”

Nico hesitated, reluctant to leave his bag behind. After everything that had happened in approximately the last twenty hours, there was no way that he could be sure that he _would_ return to this room. Finally, after a noticeable amount of consideration, Nico carefully set his bag on top of the desk that sat against one wall.

When he turned back to Will, he seemed significantly more uncomfortable than he had been before. “I can, uh, help you set a code on your door, if you’d like?” he offered, straightening up and away from the wall.

Nico shook his head. “No, you’re right. It’ll be safe here. Let’s go.”

Will gestured out into the hall like he was saying, _after you,_ and followed Nico out of the room, leaving the door to slide shut behind them. The rest of the paladins were already back at the front of the hallway waiting for them, and Will led the way back toward the dining room.

Just as Will directed the paladins to take a seat at the table, Piper’s voice crackled to life overhead: “Paladins, return to the bridge, I’ve located the Lions.”

“Okay, never mind,” Will said, and gestured for the others to follow him back out of the dining room. They were back in the control room in less than a minute due to Will’s fast pace, and inside, the map of constellations was still projected throughout the room.

“I’ve devised a plan,” Piper told him, eyes trained on the stars, not even bothering to look back at the paladins. “The Yellow Lion is located here, on Planet Praetro. The Yellow and Blue Paladins will take the Blue Lion to retrieve it.”

“Frank,” Percy said, pointing to the Yellow Paladin, and then pointed to himself and said, “Percy.”

“Right, of course,” Piper said, still not looking in their direction. “The planet doesn’t seem to be inhabited, but keep your guard up anyway. I’ve sent the coordinates to the Blue Lion, so it should be ready for departure now.

“The Green Lion is on Planet Sparz,” Piper said, moving on. “Jason, you and the Green Paladin will take one of the transport pods to Sparz to collect the Green Lion.”

“Sure, you know his name but not any of ours,” Leo said with a roll of his eyes. “My name’s Leo, by the way. Should be pretty easy to remember, considering it _means_ ‘lion’.”

“What about the Black and Red Lions?” Jason prompted.

“The Black Lion has been held inside the castle for safekeeping,” Will told him. “The only way to access it will be to bring the other four Lions to the castle.”

“The Red Lion is not currently accessible,” Piper told them. “My understanding is that it is being held on an enemy battleship. We won’t be able to collect it until we have the other three Lions because it’s too dangerous to go after it yourself. Red Paladin, you will wait here on the ship until the others return.”

“It’s Nico,” he told her, and didn’t notice as Will, off to the side, breathed the name to himself to get a feeling for it.

“I will need to open a wormhole for the Blue Lion to travel through,” Piper continued. “Will, show the paladins to the armory and prepare them to depart.”

 

They each dressed in armor corresponding to the color of their Lions, and once they were dressed, Will went around to each of them and handed them something that looked almost like a car’s steering wheel, also matching the colors of their Lions.

“These are your bayards,” Will explained. “They are your own personal weapons that will mold to your strengths. Concentrate on activating them.”

Percy held his bayard out and shut his eyes tight, only opening them once he felt the weight of the object in his hand change, the balance shifting as the weapon elongated. The weapon in his hand now appeared as a blue and white blade, fat and short, only about two feet long and double-edged - ideal for hacking away at enemies. “Sick,” Percy said, and swung the blade around for a moment before turning toward the other paladins.

Nico went next, though he kept his eyes open as his bayard transformed into a much longer blade than Percy’s, thinner, red and white, one edge sharper than the other - a full three-foot-long sword. He made no flashy display before focusing his attention on Frank beside him.

Frank held his bayard out in front of him, arm stretched out fully as both ends of his bayard stretched out into a curved shape, a thin string of light connecting the two ends - a white and yellow bow that almost appeared golden. Frank plucked the string with a single finger, and a few sparks seemed to fly off the string. He pulled the string back fully, an arrow of golden light appearing as he did so, and when he released his hold, the arrow flew across the room, burning a hole straight through the door.

Leo didn’t wait for everyone’s attention, concentrating on his bayard and watching as the edge over his fingers began to glow green, the light sharpening into a point.

“Aw, yours is so tiny,” Percy teased, and Leo reached out to prod him with the pointed edge of his bayard, sending a shock into Percy’s body. “Shit!”

Once Leo had stopped laughing, the four paladins all turned toward Jason, who was empty handed.

“Unfortunately, Jason,” Will said, “your bayard was lost with your former paladin. We may be able to find you a...less _practical_ weapon somewhere on the ship, but there is always the possibility that your bayard could be found eventually.”

Jason nodded. “Let’s see how reclaiming the Green Lion goes, then I’ll talk weapons.”

Leo _whoop_ ed, pumping his fists into the air, and the glowing edge of his bayard shot upwards, latching onto the ceiling like a grappling hook. “Sweet, let’s go!” he shouted, before his bayard yanked him off the ground.

 

The paladins went their separate ways, launching off into space to retrieve the other Lions, though Nico didn’t know what to do with himself. Will seemed to notice, however, and offered, “If you’d like, I can help you learn how to use your bayard. We can head up to the training deck to practice while we’re waiting for the others to return.”

Nico flexed his fingers on the handle of his deactivated bayard. “Uh, yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

He followed Will down the hall and into an elevator, watching as they traveled up about three floors until the door opened and they walked out into a short hallway. The only doorway in the hall led to a giant room, octagonal shaped with boundary lines on the floor and a few racks of practice weapons along the back walls.

Will left Nico at the center of the room as he ran toward the racks and pulled out a simple staff about as tall as he was. As he returned to Nico, he spun the staff around skillfully, though it was obvious that he was taking a moment to get reacquainted with the movement.

“I’ll warn you, I’ve had a lot of practice,” Will told him with an excited smile. “I’ll try to remember to go easy on you, but no promises.”

“I can take it,” Nico responded, activating his bayard and grabbing the handle with both hands. Before he knew it, his feet were swept out from underneath him, and he flopped down on his back.

He stared in shock at the ceiling before Will stepped over him, holding out a hand. “Sorry,” he said, holding back a laugh, “I couldn’t help myself. You’re going to need to pay more attention than that.”

Nico huffed and took Will’s hand, hopping back onto his feet. “Alright, let’s go again.” He readied his stance, and just as he went to strike, Will hit him in the side, knocking him off balance, and then loosened the bayard from his grip. He pushed Nico back with a single sharp hit in the center of his chest with the end of his staff, and as Nico fell back once more, his bayard flew out of his grip.

“Again,” Nico said, launching forward as soon as the bayard was back in his hand, stabbing at Will’s leg, but he was swept to the side, shoved face-down onto the floor of the deck. He rolled over onto his back just as Will held out another hand, smiling down at Nico. He should’ve been angry, would have if Will were anyone else, but Nico knew there was no malice in his expression. Will wasn’t enjoying watching Nico fail, he was just enjoying the fight itself.

“Try again?” Will offered, and pulled Nico to his feet once more.

Nico quickly learned how to defend his weakest points, gradually lasting longer in each round. Still, he found himself slammed face-first into the ground three times, his sword knocked out of his hands five times, and pinned to the ground with the air knocked out of his lungs twice - though he wasn’t sure if that was from the impact or the look in Will’s eyes as he took him out.

“I’m sorry,” Will said, removing the knee he had planted in the center of Nico’s chest. “I keep forgetting to go easy on you.”

“‘s fine,” Nico wheezed, and when Will held out a hand, Nico almost couldn’t lift his arm to be pulled back up to his feet.

“Are you sure? I think it’s time to take a rest,” Will told him with a soft chuckle.

“No, let’s go again, I can do this,” Nico insisted. Will pulled Nico up and he managed to stand on his own for approximately two seconds before his legs seemed to give out and he fell forward into Will’s chest. He saw spots swimming in his vision, suddenly unsure of which way was up.

“Nope, you don’t look very good,” Will told him. “Let’s get you back to your room before you fall unconscious.”

He wrapped an arm around Nico’s waist, half dragging him out of the room and back into the elevator. Nico tried to pay attention to which buttons Will had pushed to get the elevator to move, but either he’d hit his head a few too many times or the symbols on the buttons were indecipherable squiggles - actually, probably both.

When the elevator doors opened, they staggered down the hall to the room that Nico had claimed as his own, and Will helped Nico to sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been so rough with you,” Will said, and Nico felt his face heat up at the words. Suddenly, Will was leaning in close and holding Nico’s cheeks in his hands. “Your face just got really red, are you alright?”

“Uh, yeah,” Nico replied. “That’s just the, uh, the blood rushing to my head.”

Will’s eyes grew wide. “Do you mean that you’re...bleeding internally? Are you sure you’re alright? We should go to the med bay--”

“No, no! I’m not bleeding internally!” Nico said quickly. “It’s just-- I’m blushing, okay? I’m fine.”

The tension drained out of Will’s shoulders, though his expression showed confusion. “We have some medicine here in the castle that will help you to regain your strength in case the other paladins return soon. Perhaps it will cure this blushing as well. Stay here, I’ll go get it.”

“You can’t just _cure_ it,” Nico tried to tell him, but Will was already out of the room by the time he finished speaking.

He sighed and leaned forward to try to figure out how to remove his boots and shin guards. He was sure there was a better way to remove the shin guards then to just slide them off over his feet, but he couldn’t figure it out. He tossed the discarded bits of armor into the corner before laying back and sticking one leg into the air at a time to remove the thigh guards.

He managed to remove every piece of armor aside from the chest plate by the time Will returned. Will seemed to notice him struggling and quickly unclipped a few clasps on either side of the piece, and Nico was able to lift the armor off over his head easily.

As soon as the last piece of armor joined the rest on the floor, Will handed Nico what looked like a shot glass containing a very green substance.

“What is it?” Nico asked cautiously.

“Medicine,” Will answered. “You should feel the effects almost immediately after drinking it. You’ll feel refreshed and be ready to fight again in minutes.”

Nico sighed and held the glass close to his lips. He met Will’s eyes for a second before glancing toward his bag, still sitting on the desk where he’d left in. He nodded his head toward it and said, “Could you grab that for me?” before knocking the drink back. It had the same texture as jello that was starting to liquify, and tasted so foul that Nico almost gagged. He forced the shot glass back into Will’s hand before he pointed at his bag and said, “My bag, please?”

“Oh! Of course,” Will answered. He spun around to grab the bag, replacing it with the glass, and by the time he turned back around, Nico had pulled the shirt of his black thermal suit off over his head.

“Thanks,” he said when Will held out the bag, and set it on the bed next to him. He opened up the bag and dug around inside as he said, “That medicine was gross, by the way.” Nico pulled a black, oversized, hooded pullover out of his bag and put it on. “I think I am starting to feel better already, though.” He glanced up at Will who looked to be frozen in place, staring at Nico.

Nico frowned. “Your little blue marks are glowing,” he said, pointing at his own cheekbone.

“It’s nothing!” Will said quickly, slightly too loud, and averted his eyes. “You should rest, so I’ll be leaving. I’ll come back to get you when the other paladins return. Um. Rest well.” He stepped toward the door before spinning around and swiping the shot glass off Nico’s desk, and practically ran out of the room.

Will went straight to the bridge where he knew Piper would still be monitoring the other paladins’ progress.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, barely taking her eyes off the map for a second to look at him.

“I don’t think these paladins have any shame,” he said, somewhat out of breath. “The Red Paladin, he--”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Spit it out, Willow.”

“He undressed! Right there in front of me!” Will told her, reaching up and rubbing at the marks on his cheeks. “He acted like it was nothing unusual, and continued on with our conversation, and now I can’t get my marks to stop burning!”

Piper stifled a laugh, though the look on her face gave her away.

“Don’t laugh at me, this is serious!”

“So you’re infatuated with him _,_ Will, it’s not _that_ serious,” Piper told him.

“I’m not _infatuated!”_

 

* * *

 

Nico had trained his body to sleep for only a few hours at a time, because it was dangerous to live alone in the middle of the desert with no security except for the knife he kept on him at all times. So when he woke up, it was easy for him to assume that he’d been asleep somewhere between three and four hours, because he hadn’t slept for longer than a few hours in months.

He took a pair of gray skinny jeans out of his bag and slipped them on before he left his room. He wandered around the halls for a little while before he finally managed to find his way back to the bridge, where he found Will and Piper staring at the projected maps and talking quietly to each other.

He was about to make himself known when suddenly, Frank’s face appeared over a section of the map, surrounded by a faint yellow glow. “We’ve retrieved the Yellow Lion. Percy and I are on our way back now.”

“Wonderful, we’ll see you soon,” Piper responded, and Frank’s face flashed away, like an old TV turning off.

Nico stepped into the room, opening his mouth to speak, when his stomach growled loudly, revealing his position to the Alteans. “Um. Sorry. Is there anything I can eat before the others get back?”

“Of course,” Will answered, and hopped up out of his seat. He ignored the look that Piper shot him as he walked past, and led Nico back to the dining room. He gestured for Nico to sit at the table as he continued past and into the kitchen, preparing Nico a plate of food.

When he set the plate of pale green goo in front of Nico, the human scrunched up his nose. “What’s up with you guys and weird gooey green stuff?”

Will smiled as he sat down across from Nico, though he didn’t have any food to eat himself. “I promise, this tastes much better than the medicine I gave you.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at Will, like _you wanna bet?_ But he picked up his spork and scooped up a tiny portion of goo, stuffing it in his mouth quickly to get it over with.

“Well?” Will asked.

“It’s weird,” Nico answered. “Like eating whipped cream if whipped cream wasn’t sweet.”

Will propped his head up on one hand. “I don’t know what that is,” he said, smile growing slightly.

Nico popped another spork-full of flavorless goo into his mouth, giving himself a moment to think before he spoke. “It’s white, and I guess a little thinner than this stuff. It’s pretty sweet. We usually use it as a topping on desserts.” Nico ate another bite. “Actually, it might be more like jello, because of the texture.”

“I don’t know what that is, either,” Will told him, smile still growing steadily.

“It’s like,” Nico paused, stabbing at his plate of goo a few times. “It looks like this, except a little more transparent. And sometimes it’s red or blue or another color. Some people eat it as a snack, but some eat it as dessert because it’s super sweet and full of sugar.”

“It sounds like your planet is full of sweet things,” Will said smoothly.

Nico looked up at him and froze with his spork halfway up to his mouth. Will was looking at him so _softly,_ those little blue marks on his cheeks glowing once more. Nico felt his cheeks heat up as he stared back down at his plate, stuffing another bite into his mouth.

“There’s more than just sweets,” Nico said, and glanced up to see Will’s lips parting to respond, but a different voice was heard suddenly: “The Blue and Yellow Lions have returned to the castle, and I have received a message from Jason that the Green Lion is on its way as well.”

“I should, uh, probably go put my armor back on, right?” Nico asked, and then ate a few more quick bites before standing up from his seat. He lifted up his plate and said, “Uh, what should I--”

“I’ll take care of it,” Will told him, rising up and taking the dish from his hands. “You go get ready.”

 

The five paladins all gathered together so that Piper could give them direction. “I’ve gathered that the Red Lion is located on an enemy ship, which means that it will most likely be heavily guarded by Galra soldiers. You will be targeted as soon as you are in range of their ship, so you must be incredibly careful when approaching it. Jason will be staying in the castle with myself and Will. Nico, you will go with Percy in the Blue Lion, and the Yellow and Green Lions will provide you with cover.”

“How am I supposed to find the Red Lion once I’m inside?” Nico asked.

“I’ll be directing you,” Will answered. “Once you’re inside, I should be able to get a layout of the ship, so I can direct you to the most likely place that the Red Lion will be kept.”

“Is everyone clear on what is to be done?” Piper asked.

“No,” Leo said, “but I’m sure we’ll figure it out as we go.”

“That doesn’t sound as reassuring as you think it did,” Frank told him.

“Alright, everyone,” Jason interrupted. “You heard the princess, get to your Lions.”

“Yes, sir,” Percy said with a mocking salute. He spun around and marched off toward the hangers where the lions were kept, the other three paladins gradually following behind.

Nico made sure to seem as though he was following closely behind Percy, but as soon as he was sure that Jason and Piper couldn’t see them, he ditched Percy and snuck into the Yellow Lion’s hanger with Frank.

“Uh, aren’t you supposed to be with Percy?” Frank asked as he dropped into the pilot’s seat, and Nico braced himself for takeoff by grabbing onto the back of Frank’s chair.

“Why, are you going to turn this lion around?” Nico joked, though the look on his face made Frank unsure of whether or not he was actually serious.

“Of course not, we don’t have the time for that,” Frank said, and the lion launched out of the hangar.

The other lions were waiting for them outside of the castle. Percy’s face appeared on the dashboard screen. “Hey, uh, Nico’s not with me,” he said, glancing around the cockpit of the Blue Lion to see if Nico was possibly hiding from him.

“He’s with me,” Frank responded. “Let’s get going so we can get the Red Lion.”

Almost simultaneously, the three lions shot into the sky and out of the planet’s atmosphere.

“How did you get Yellow to respond to you?” Nico asked suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Frank said. “It just happened.”

“What if the Red Lion doesn’t respond to me? What if I’m not its paladin and going all this way will have been for nothing? I’m putting us all in danger for _nothing.”_

“Okay, well, it’s not for nothing,” Frank told him. “And the Red Lion _will_ respond, because it _has to,_ got it? Just do everything you can to make it happen. When Percy and I went to go get Yellow, we were ambushed, and I basically had to tuck-and-roll out of the Blue Lion and book it for where the Yellow Lion had been hidden.

“I found him in this cave, kinda like how we found Blue, and I was running full speed down this tunnel, just shouting, ‘Open up! Open up!’ And Yellow responded. _I_ didn’t do anything, it was all him.”

“‘Him’?” Nico repeated. “You gendered your lion?”

“It just, I dunno, feels right,” Frank answered. “I think we’re getting close to the target. Amazing how fast these things can fly, right?”

Percy and Leo provided cover as Frank flew close to the enemy ship. Yellow blasted a hole in the side of the craft and Frank maneuvered him until Yellow’s snout had pushed into the ship so that Nico could climb out through the mouth.

The hallway inside the ship was empty, but Nico drew his bayard anyway in preparation for a fight.

“Nico, are you inside the ship?” Will’s voice crackled into Nico’s helmet.

“Yeah, which way do I go?” he asked, staring down one end of the hallway and then the other.

“Just start moving, I haven’t gotten a clear signal yet,” Will told him. “I’ll let you know which way to go when I figure it out.”

“Got it,” Nico responded, and started down the hall to his right. He could hear Will speaking to himself, sometimes clear, sometimes riddled with static. He continued forward, taking a left down another hall when the opportunity came. “Anything?” he asked after a short while.

“Maybe,” Will said. “Take the next right.”

Nico glanced around the corner at the next intersection of hallways, and jumped back almost immediately, pressing his back against the wall. “No can do. There’s about ten sentries standing around.”

“Fight through them,” Will told him. “It’s the right way.”

“You just said maybe!” Nico hissed.

 _“Trust me!”_ Will demanded, and Nico wanted to argue, but knew he shouldn’t.

“Fine,” he ground out through his teeth. He peeked around the corner again before taking a deep breath and running full speed down the hall toward the sentries.

He almost faltered when he saw the guns pointed at him, but managed to continue forward, dodging blasts and slicing through enemies as he passed. The remaining soldiers started running after him, but Nico was faster and took a few turns down upcoming hallways to throw them off his trail.

“Will?” he panted, back pressed into another wall. “Which way now?”

No response. A bit of static. Silence.

“Will?” Nico tried again, but to no avail. “Damn it!”

He took a few more deep breaths. He tightened his grip on his sword, holding up the blade for examination when he noticed that it was still perfectly clean. He’d sliced a few limbs off of some of those sentries, and did a lot more damage for there to not even be any trace of blood on the weapon. Maybe Galra didn’t have blood.

He noticed something caught near the handle of his bayard - thin, like a cable, with frayed wires along the edges.

“They’re robots,” Nico decided. “I can kill robots, easy. I’m not really killing anything if they’re just robots.”

He glanced around the corner before making his way back the way he came. So many sentries in one place but nowhere else on the ship had to be guarding _something,_ even if it wasn’t what Nico was looking for. Sprinting down the hall, he fought off a few more sentries before slipping in through the door they were guarding, slamming it shut behind him and allowing himself a few seconds to breathe.

Towering above him - though still slightly smaller than the Blue and Yellow Lions - sat Red, unmoving, a softly glowing force field surrounding it.

Nico stepped toward the lion and raised his hand to press his palm against the force field, just like Percy had done with the Blue Lion, though the force field remained. Nico pounded his fist against the barrier, demanding, “Come on, open up!”

He could hear the sentries’ blasters firing against the door.

“We don’t have time for this!” Nico pleaded. “Please? Is that what you want to hear? Open up, _please!”_

The forcefield dissolved, and the lion’s head tilted down to examine Nico before it crouched down, mouth open, so that Nico could run inside.

He dropped into the pilot’s seat, Red’s dashboard screens slowly coming to life around him. He could see the locations of each of the other lions as they fought of Galra ships, as well as a video feed of each of the other paladins. As Nico set his hands on the control and Red started to move, another screen came to life on the dashboard displaying Will’s smiling face.

“The Red Lion has been retrieved!” Will exclaimed, and Nico could hear the other paladins cheering through his helmet.

“Great work,” Piper said, though Nico couldn’t see her on his dashboard. “Now, everyone return to the castle as soon as possible.”

“Will do, Princess,” Leo said, and Nico watched through his lion’s eyes as the Green Lion barrel-rolled out of the line of fire and retreated. The other three lions followed after, and soon the few Galra cruisers still tailing them turned back. In a matter of minutes, the four lions touched down on Arus, just outside of the castle.

Not long after, they watched as a purple streak shot out of the center of the castle, and soon the Black Lion was towering over them.

“Dude, Jason, your lion is huge!” Leo exclaimed. “That’s no fair, Green’s like, the size of one of Black’s legs!”

“The Green and Red Lions function as Voltron’s arms, meaning that they don’t need to be as large as the Blue, Yellow, or Black Lions,” Will explained over the comms.

“Congratulations, Paladins, you’re one step closer to forming Voltron,” Piper told them. “Everyone return to the castle to get some rest. We will start your training tomorrow morning.”

 

After changing out of the Paladin armor, the five humans each ate a plate of alien food goo before Piper insisted that they all head to their rooms for the night. Four of the Paladins rose from their chairs and left the dining room, while Nico lingered behind, cleaning up the plates left by the others.

“Did you need something, Nico?” Will asked as he took the stack of plates from Nico’s hands.

“Um, yeah,” he said, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt so that he could try to ignore the tingling tips of his fingers where Will’s hands had brushed his. “I was hoping I could get some more training in while everyone else is sleeping.”

“Oh, sure!” Will said. “But I have a few other things that I need to do before morning. I could show you how to set up the Gladiator, though.”

“The Gladiator?” Nico repeated.

“It’s a training robot,” Will explained. “You can set it to different skill levels, which is probably a good choice for late-night training. You can take it easy so that you’re not exhausted in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay, that sounds...good,” Nico said, hoping that his mild disappointment that Will wouldn’t be training with him didn’t show clearly on his face.

Will led him back to the training deck and called into the empty room, “Activate training simulator.” He glanced over to see that Nico had already activated his bayard, so he continued, “Training level one, begin.”

A robot dropped from the ceiling wielding a metal staff like the one Will had used, and charged at Nico as soon as its feet touched the ground.

Will stayed behind to watch as Nico took down the Gladiator with little difficulty, and when Nico turned to him with a wide smile, Will couldn’t help but return it.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself handled,” Will said. “To activate the Gladiator, just call out a level and say _begin._ I don’t recommend skipping levels. And make sure you get some rest soon, alright?”

“Yeah, okay,” he answered. “Thanks, Will.” Nico turned back to see the Gladiator fall through a hole in the floor of the training deck. “Training level two, begin!”

Will moved toward the doorway, but found himself distracted by Nico’s training. He knew he had work to do, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Nico for the duration of the second training level. However, hearing Nico call out for the third level to begin drew Will out of his trance, and he managed to pull himself away.

Nico had been so focused on fighting that he hadn’t seen Will watching him, and had continued on until the end of the fifth level before he found himself too exhausted to go on. He surprised himself with how long he had been able to fight without losing his focus, and figured it may have been the focus that kept him fighting as long as he had. If he made it all the way through the first five training levels, there was no logical explanation for why Will had been able to beat him so easily unless he was distracted, right? But that had to mean that _Will_ was the distraction--

He was too tired to think about this. He was too tired to remember the way back to his room, and he was too tired to even try to find his way. He eyed the Gladiator waiting for instruction, and when he remembered that the robot wouldn’t attack without a command, he deactivated his bayard and moved toward the wall furthest from the Gladiator.

Nico laid down, back pressed against the wall, and curled up around his bayard, incredibly grateful for his ability to fall asleep literally anywhere.

 

* * *

 

The paladins were rowdy at breakfast, all excited to start their training and get to forming Voltron. There was something that didn’t seem quite right to Will, however; something was missing.

Piper entered the room, and for a second Will thought that she had filled the empty space he’d imagined, but he quickly realized he was wrong when Piper said, “Good morning, Paladins, are you ready to start-- Where is the Red Paladin?”

Leo leaned forward and back, looking around the others to see that Nico wasn’t sitting anywhere at the table. “Oh yeah, where is he?”

“I’ll go find him,” Will said, probably too quickly if the look that Piper was giving him was anything to go by. “So you can start directing them, and they won’t miss anything,” he explained. “I’ll return as soon as possible.”

He left the room, waiting until he was a little ways down the hall before he rubbed his palms over the marks on his cheeks, hoping to stop the burning that he felt there.

Will made his way down to Nico’s room, knocking on the door a few times before opening it and seeing that it was empty. He checked the bathrooms on that floor and the floor above, but Nico wasn’t in either of those places either. He was starting to get worried when he remembered that he’d shown Nico to the training deck the night before - he couldn’t still be training, could he?

He hopped into the elevator and went up to the training deck, seeing from the hallway that the lights were still on inside. Will stepped through the door and saw the Gladiator activated in the center of the room, though it wasn’t making any move to attack, so he called out for the computer to deactivate it. He didn’t see Nico until he spun around in a circle and found him lying on the ground against the wall, curled around his bayard, unmoving.

Will felt his heart stop for a second before he ran toward the paladin, eyes scanning him for injuries and placing a hand on his shoulder once he was close enough. Nico flinched at the touch, waking up in an instant and activating his bayard out to the sword’s full length, nearly stabbing Will through the chest as he did so.

“Will?” Nico said, voice rough from sleep, dropping his bayard which deactivated as soon as it hit the ground. “Shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

“It’s alright,” Will told him, though Nico could see nothing but concern in his eyes as he sat up until they were nearly eye-level with each other. “I’m okay. Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah, I’m-- I mean, I’m a little tired, but, yeah,” Nico told him. “Um. How long was I asleep?”

“I’m not sure,” Will said. “If I had to guess, I would say at least six vargas.”

Nico frowned in confusion, rubbing the sleep out of one of his eyes as he said, “I don’t know what that is.”

“About twice as long as your last sleep cycle,” Will explained. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I’m just, uh, not really used to sleeping that much, I guess.”

Will frowned like he wasn’t quite satisfied with that answer, but stood up and held out a hand to Nico after a few seconds. “Come with me to the dining room to get something to eat. Everyone else is there already.”

“Okay, sure.” Nico took his hand.

Things were quiet on their walk back to the dining room, which allowed Nico to hear Piper from a little ways down the hall: “Once the Red Paladin arrives, you will head to your Lions and practice forming Voltron. This will require great concentration and a strong bond with your fellow Paladins.” As soon as she noticed Nico standing in the doorway, Piper clapped her hands together and said, “Alright, Paladins, to your Lions!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! this fic has been about a year in progress and this is only about its halfway point, so hopefully i'll get around to finishing it one of these days


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